


Bricks

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Series: Aileen Westbrook [5]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Adventure, Desert Treasure, Gen, World Guardian - Freeform, questfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning from Morytania, Aileen pays a visit to the dig site and receives an invitation.<br/>This kicks off Ancient Artefacts, a series based loosely on the initial stages of the quest Desert Treasure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bricks

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of a fascination with Roman brick stamps and the way they have been used to reconstruct brick production and trade routes in Ancient Rome.
> 
> Dr Balando is every archaeologist ever, and just wants to introduce an interested layman to the CIZ, the Corpus Inscriptionum Zarosianarum. He means well.

 

                   _Novtumber, 161._

                   I had returned from Morytania for the second time, and didn’t know why. I had spent almost a year east of the Salve, first in Burgh de Rott, then in Canifis, and then in the ghost town of Port Phasmatys by the Eastern Sea. I had done odd jobs for odd people. I had made friends in lone places. I had met, in contexts too outlandish to relate, a whole crowd of the mercenaries and traders, dark mages and holy men who flock to the forbidden country to practice their vocations. They said that Morytania grew on you, like creeper moss on a dead swamp tree. They liked the lawlessness. They liked the danger. And for a while I did too, but as the nights grew longer and colder and the mires covered up in frost, I finally decided to flee for the safety of Misthalin.

                      I stopped at Paterdomus on the way back.  The boy seemed healthier already, and Drezel said he was settling in well. The two of them were busy fixing up the temple, and I left them at that.

                      So, there I was back in Varrock, with no funds to travel and winter approaching fast. The snowy months are no time for rune-running, and that meant I needed to find something else. I wanted to lie low for a while, put a bit of money aside, and make my way to Rellekka as soon as what the Morytanians call  _rasputitsa_ was over. The first place where I asked for work was the dig site.

                      I had hoped that the credentials I had earned by (quite accidentally) discovering the underground temple would make up for my lack of formal education, but Dr Balando was adamant, if apologetic.

                      “The work is at too crucial a stage at this point,” he said, stressing every word. We were sitting in his office at the research centre south of the ruins. The desk between us was littered with books and papers, and he kept rearranging them into different patterns of disorder.

                      Dr Balando liked me, in the way he liked anyone who was ready to get excited about old pottery shards. But he was also a man dedicated to his work, and that weighed more.

                      “This is too important,” he continued. “I can’t allow someone with no formal qualifications to be involved in the actual cataloguing and analysis. The best I can offer is manual tasks such as cleaning up specimens, and even that will stop soon, as we close the excavation for winter.” He spread his hands and moved a folder from one pile to another. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, and I think he meant it. Then, suddenly, he seemed to remember something, and his eyes lit up.

                      “There is, however, something I want you to see,” he said. “I only acquired them recently, and given that it’s you who found the place, well, I think you might be interested.” Smiling conspiratorially, he pulled open a drawer, and produced from it a simple wooden case, such as could have held two bottles of Burthorpe whiskey. He placed it on the desk between us, and with the panache of a stage magician drawing a rabbit out of an empty hat, he drew aside the lid.

                      “Now, what do you make of that, eh?”

                      “I would say,” I answered while staring at the contents of the box, “that that is a pair of bricks, Dr Balando.”

                      “And I would say that you are very perceptive, Mistress Westbrook. But,” he continued, “It’s not just a pair of  _any_ bricks. Pick up the one on the left, and have a good look at it.” I did as I was told, handling the sample with care. It was dark red in colour and chipped at the edges, with nothing to suggest it had not fallen from a chimney in South Varrock. Then I turned it over, and spotted the little indentation on its surface.

                      The mark had been stamped into the clay when it was wet, and the millennia had not been able to erode it. It showed, in miniature, the cross-and-circle symbol found in the temple, and around it, a few words in the strange, square letters I had first seen in the stone tablet there. I ran my fingers across them, trying to make out the shapes.

                      “Is it…” I started, but Dr Balando could not contain himself.

                      “Yes,” he said, “that is the mark of the pagan god Zaros. As for the writing around it, it says “SNT 19th year of PM Sero. Do you know what that means?”

                      “No.”

                      “It means that’s a talking brick.”

                      “A talking brick.”

                      “Yes, Westbrook,” he went on, and his eyes were going a bit strange. “It talks. It tells us when it was made. It tells us that its makers worshipped this Zaros. It tells us they kept records about brick production. This one came off a hastily constructed wall. There was an incomplete specimen from the same structure stamped ‘SNT 23rd year of PM Sero.’ — I presume this was the name of a king — but almost all the others, will you believe it, had had their stamps chiselled off.” He paused for effect, letting the information sink in. “Someone,” he continued, “recycled those bricks from an earlier construction. And that someone, who didn’t bother with proper foundations, took the time to strike off the stamps. How does that sound to you?”

                      “Unlikely.”

                      “It makes little sense, does it,” he said, long past listening, “and that is not all either. Have a look at the other one.” I did, and was none the wiser for it. It was darker and more eroded than its companion, but no different from it otherwise. The stamp on it showed the same symbol and writing, though the letters were slightly different.

                      “It says ‘GHR 5th year of PM Altairi’, in case you are wondering,” Dr Balando said. “The meaning of the abbreviations is unknown. But the point is, the point is this. The first one came from our excavation here. Right above the temple, actually. The second one, the one you are holding, guess where that one came from?”

                      “Tell me.”

                       _“The northern shore of the Wilderness.”_  His voice had dropped to a whisper. “Thousands of miles away. A friend of mine found it in some crumbling ruins, half-buried in the earth.”

                      “What,” I interrupted, “was your friend doing in northern Wilderness?”

                      “I didn’t ask. He’s a seafarer and his journeys take him to strange places. But,” he went on, “The point is, it was not the only one of its kind. The people who built the lower parts of the city here, they went all the way up there. The people who worshipped this god Zaros, they were in northern Wilderness, and they stamped their bricks there in exactly the same fashion. And there is still more. Do you know where else they have found the same symbol?  _Morytania._  There is a ruined fortress near the bridge, and the symbol, and some of this writing were found carved into the masonry.”

                      “The Tower?” I exclaimed. “Someone’s investigating the Tower? There are places in Morytania that the locals don’t mention and even the most foolhardy mercenaries shun. Meiyerditch. The old mines near Burgh de Rott. The Tower.

                      “Someone was, but not for very long.” He hesitated, unwilling to dwell on the matter. “Nevertheless, here in Varrock. Right on the other side of the Salve. Up in the Wilderness. The same symbol, the same writing; these people went far! They built amazing edifices here, had an outpost on the other side of the world, and then disappeared without a trace! It is almost as if any evidence of their existence was deliberately destroyed! And now, finally, there is one last thing I —” He stopped abruptly, and seemed to think for a second. When he spoke again, he was almost muttering to himself. “But of course, of course, why didn’t I think about it…”

                      He took the second brick from me, and laid it gently in the box. He closed the lid, and returned his treasure in the desk drawer. Then he reached into another one, and placed on the desk two objects: A small, rectangular stone tablet, and a dog-eared old notebook.

                      “These”, he said, beaming, “came in the mail yesterday. They are from an acquaintance of mine, who — you could say — works in the field. He’s currently investigating certain folk legends connected to a pyramid in the Kharidian Desert, and he sent me this for translation.” He turned over the stone tablet, and I found myself looking at line after line of the angular letters of the forgotten civilisation. But there was something different here. The alphabet was the same, but the letters were uneven, almost childish, and the lines curved at ends, as if the stone carver had not properly known his trade.

                      “He obtained it from local nomads, who claimed that it’s an ancient heirloom of their tribe. I’m halfway through translating the text,” Dr Balando said, “and I should be done in two more days. After that, I’ll need someone to take it to Al-Kharid, where my acquaintance is staying. And as things stand, he happens to be looking for an assistant for his next trip to the Desert.”

                      “Do you mean—?”

                      “Yes, I quite mean, Aileen. I write you a letter of recommendation. You travel there as an employee of the museum, visit ruins with him, keep a record of all your discoveries, and we all get what we want. If you take my offer, naturally.”

                      “Yes! Yes, of course, I…” I had no words. I could travel south and spend the winter in Kharid. I would work as an assistant to an archaeologist and a scribe for the Museum of Varrock. Living would cost next to nothing. When the spring came I could drop off my report, take my money and head for Rellekka.

                      “So,” Dr Balando said. “Are you ready for a holiday?”

 

 


End file.
